


silicon valley

by orphan_account



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Vaguely MAMA AU, crystal pepsi, vaporwave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: tao brings back the moments yifan forgets





	silicon valley

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted from my aff account

Yifan chases Zitao into valleys barefoot. 

 

He does not  know where they are most of the time, for it is always Zitao’s curiosity that draws them to new places that smell familiar, look familiar, enchant in familiar ways, echo with the sweetest laughter and exist in greyscale or blinding color. Venturing into the unknown and crossing through eras that have long since passed and become memory, as though they are his present, is puzzling to Yifan at first. He does not understand how Zitao harbors such an incredible ability to exist in so many places at once, in so many memories at once, but he supposes he does not care. 

 

_ “I’m thirsty.” _ Zitao announces, grabbing Yifan’s hand with zeal, smiling brighter than Yifan thinks he has ever seen anybody smile before. He can feel the dirt between Zitao’s palms from the flowers he had been holding earlier—dainty, teeny little things, about the size of a finger, with white petals and yellow centers.  _ Weeds _ , as Yifan’s mother had once called them, what seems like a lifetime ago, when Yifan was a child and would play in the front yard, or duck away from his parents in boredom during impromptu family reunions outside of supermarkets. He would pluck the little wildflowers— _ weeds _ —from the cracks between the sidewalks. 

 

“ _ Oh no,” _ Yifan says, though he is grinning, because he knows that Zitao’s innocent intentions are always so well-received, the tapping of their feet through moments in time, and, clutching Yifan’s hand tightly, Zitao turns from him and cries softly,  _ let’s go! _

 

When they travel, Yifan feels exhausted and refreshed, calm and anxious, like swirls of the orange and red sunset meeting the endless blacks and blues of the night sky, and just as transient, just as  _ timeless _ . Seconds turn into hours, the sky drips like candle wax onto their bodies and molds them into caricatures of wherever Zitao so desires to travel, but really—where ever  _ Yifan _ so desires too, even if he dreams of these places incoherently. 

 

They run until the valley is no longer a valley, until they are no longer together in the solace of the day, but instead in the humid cool of a summer evening, standing hand-in-hand in the middle of a street, where unintelligible characters are written on vertically-hanging street signs and on the heavily-trekked concrete, to direct traffic to places cars cannot drive. 

 

The builds are tall, dancing in blue, yellow, green, red neons. Restaurants, bars, clubs, internet cafes, stores—they’re all here, and yet, no longer do they stand. 

 

People aged down twenty years, non-linearly, back as teenagers with teased, messy hair and frosty blue eyeshadow, children who are no longer children—at least, not where Yifan is from—run past them, giggling in their light-up trainers, arms outstretched as they pretend they are airplanes soaring high above the city in the night sky. 

 

Zitao, beside Yifan, in a white sweatshirt that says  _ FILA  _ across the breast, acid-washed jeans, and adidas sneakers, looks around with wonderment, the signs and their neons glittering like stars in his eyes. 

 

Though entranced by a place that he has never been, yet feels oddly familiar, Yifan finds himself staring only at Zitao, breathtaking, feeling the nostalgia as memories that he does not have unfold across the span of Zitao’s starry eyes. 

 

They’re both panting, breathing as though they’ve just run a marathon, though they’ve actually just run decades. 

 

_ “Now I’m thirsty, too.” _ Yifan finally says, and they both laugh, Zitao pointing across the way. 

 

_ “There.” _

 

Just down the street, on the corner lot, a teeny, tiny, neon-lit store with glass windows and doors, revealing neat rows of products stacked on shelves, bright colored drinks and slowly-rotating foods. 

 

The new, yet already faded-looking bands of the orange, green, and red signage read out brightly:

 

_ 7-ELEVEN _

 

Just as they run through time and space and worlds as they exist, ghosts in the framework of a human construct that doesn’t have a tangible science behind it, and yet,  _ does _ , they run hand-in-hand, like the excited little kids with light up sneakers, to the store, Yifan laughing to himself at the absurdity of it all—the absurdity of his life now. 

 

So unorthodox—to exist in a world that sees him, but not in the way he sees it; to age beyond his wisdom but press not even the imprint of a day past twenty-eight into his skin, to befriend and befriend and befriend the same people, lifetimes apart, to soar so high above the cities and the clouds, Zitao clinging to him the way Yifan clings when they take year-long strides. 

 

Never before—never would Yifan even  _ conjure  _ such a concept—let alone imagine himself living it, crossing into realms and finding such beauty in things that people overlook, and in the years to come, look back at with wistful nostalgia—like faded neon signs and karaoke bars that are no longer there. 

 

Yifan follows Zitao into valleys barefoot, and through the skinny, white-lit aisles of a  _ 7-ELEVEN,  _ laughing too loudly to be anything but a nuisance, holding too-many cups of instant-noodles in one hand and a green, icy-cold can of pepsi.

 

Zitao laughs and accidentally knocks over a cardboard cutout of Sailor Moon, apologizing to the cashier at the front who is watching the pair with wary eyes, and meets up with Yifan at the counter, spilling the contents of his hands. 

 

Onto the counter, atop a glass display of lottery tickets, rolls out a bottle of Crystal Pepsi that Zitao had found, and Yifan gapes at it in surprise—where are they? Or rather,  _ when _ are they?

 

He hasn’t once thought of exactly  _ when  _ they are—a phenomena that isn’t exactly strange to Zitao, who never seems to know what time it is, what day it is, or what year it is, but Yifan can’t exactly let go of his old habits so quickly just yet. 

 

As Zitao laughs at him, not really caring  _ when  _ they are, he fishes out his wallet, always managing to have  _ just  _ enough cash to purchase whatever they happen to be buying. 

 

Yifan ducks away from the cashier’s desk, finding himself squinting under the flourescent lighting, and grabs a newspaper from the stand by the door. 

 

At the top, above a headline that he can’t read, the date. 

 

_ 8 July 1992  _

 

_ “Oh!” _ He scoffs, looking back at Zitao, who is waiting patiently for the cashier to bag up their snacks.  _ “1992, really?” _

 

Zitao sticks his tongue out cheekily, and gives the cashier an extra dollar to pay for the newspaper that he knows Yifan won’t surrender. 

 

The cashier stares at them strangely, feeling as though he’s watching something that shouldn’t be happening, but hands Zitao his change anyways.

 

“Have a good night.” The cashier says, suspicion heavy in his voice, and Zitao, fishing through a white bag that says: 

 

_ THANKYOU _

_ THANKYOU _

_ THANKYOU _

_ THANKYOU _

_ THANKYOU _

 

Pulls from it his drink and twists the cap off, waving his courtesy, and meets Yifan at the door. 

 

_ “What?” _ Zitao cries in innocence after swallowing a mouthful of his drink. He twists the cap back on as they cross through the doors of the  _ 7-ELEVEN _ , and smiles at Yifan.  _ “I was thirsty.” _ He says simply, and Yifan rolls his eyes and grins, taking from Zitao the bottle of Crystal Pepsi, which is but a fragment of his childhood—a drink he was never allowed due to the caffeine content—and twists the cap off. 

 

_ “You’re weird.” _ Yifan hurries out affectionately, bringing the bottle to his lips, and Zitao, taking no offence to Yifan, who is always such a good sport, following without question into the past, into the present, into the future, into worlds that are in existence and not, threads his fingers through Yifan’s, because Yifan, though not a part of Zitao’s past—is a part of Zitao’s  _ forever _ . 

In his other hand, Zitao lifts the grocery bag, to his face and smiles as big as he can. 

 

_ “Thank you!” _

  
And Yifan only response is a tender, swollen,  _ loving _ ,  _ “I hate you.” _

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: this was my take on a mama au


End file.
